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→What is Fear
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"> ... fear is an impurity, one of the greatest impurities, one of those which come most directly from the anti-divine forces which want to destroy the divine action on earth; and the first duty of those who really want to do yoga is to eliminate from their consciousness, with all the might, all the sincerity, all the endurance of which they are capable, even the shadow of a fear. To walk on the path, one must be dauntless, and never indulge in that petty, small, feeble, nasty shrinking back upon oneself, which is fear. </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/15-august-1956#p7</ref></u></span>
==Fear and Religion == <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">The vital has origin of this divine fear was crude enough in some of the primitive popular religions. It was the perception of powers in the world greater than man, obscure in their nature and workings, which seemed always ready to be carefully distinguished strike him down in his prosperity and to smite him for any actions which displeased them. Fear of the gods arose from mindman's ignorance of God and his ignorance of the laws that govern the world. It attributed to the higher powers caprice and human passion; it made them in the image of the great ones of the earth, capable of whim, tyranny, personal enmity, jealous of any greatness in man which might raise him above the littleness of terrestrial nature and bring him too near to the divine nature. With such notions no real devotion could arise, except that doubtful kind which the weaker may feel for the stronger whose protection he can buy by worship and gifts and propitiation and obedience to such laws as he may have laid upon those beneath him and may enforce by rewards and punishments, even though it has or else the submissive and prostrate reverence and adoration which one may feel for a mind element transfused into it; greatness, glory, wisdom, sovereign power which is above the vital world and is the Life nature made up source or at any rate the regulator of all its laws and happenings.</span><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-godward-emotions#p3</ref></u> <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">The idea of desiresthe almighty Judge, sensationsLegislator, feelingsKing, passionsis a crude and imperfect idea of the Divine, energies of actionwhen taken by itself, will because it takes an inferior and an external truth for the main truth and it tends to prevent a higher approach to a more intimate reality. It exaggerates the importance of desire, reactions the sense of sin and thereby prolongs and increases the desire soul in man 's fear and self-distrust and weakness. It attaches the pursuit of all that play virtue and the shunning of sin to the idea of possessive rewards and other related instinctspunishment, angerthough given in an after life, and makes them dependent on the lower motives of fear, greed, lust etcand interest instead of the higher spirit which should govern the ethical being. that belong to this field It makes hell and heaven and not the Divine himself the object of the naturehuman soul in its religious living. Mind and vital are mixed up on These crudities have served their turn in the surface slow education of the consciousnesshuman mind, but they are quite separate forces of no utility to the Yogin who knows that whatever truth they may represent belongs rather to the external relations of the developing human soul with the external law of the universe than any intimate truth of the inner relations of the human soul with the Divine; but it is these which are the proper field of Yoga </span><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in themselves /cwsa/24/the-godward-emotions#p4</ref></u> <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">A large number of religious rules which are founded solely on hygienic principles, on medical knowledge, and as soon as one gets behind have been raised into religious principles, for that was the ordinary surface consciousness one sees only way to make people observe them as separate. If you are not told that "God wants" that you should do this or that, you would not do it, discovers their distinct action and can with the aid majority of this knowledge analyse their surface mixturesmen ordinarily do not do it. It For instance, that very simple thing—washing your hands before eating; in countries where the civilisation is not quite possible and even usual during scientific, some people discovered that in truth it was probably more hygienic to wash the hands first! If they had not made a religious rule, if they hadn't said that "God wanted" that a man wash his hands before eating, otherwise it would be an offence against Him, people would have said: "Oh, why? No, not today, tomorrow. I have no time shorter or longer, sometimes very long, for I am in a hurry!" But in this way there is that constant fear at the mind back of their minds that something bad will happen to them due to accept the Divine God's anger. This too is a superstition, a big superstition. </span><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/15-july-1953#p5</ref></u> <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">In religions there is so much fear! Fear: "If I don't do this or that, if I don't cut the Yogic ideal while the vital is unconvinced and unsurrendered and goes obstinately on its way throat of desirea dozen chickens, passion and attraction disastrous things will happen to the ordinary me all my life. Their division through or their conflict is at least the cause of most whole of this year. My children will be ill, I shall lose my job, I won't be able to earn my living; very, very unpleasant things will happen to me.".... And so, let us sacrifice the more acute difficulties of dozen chickens. But it is not from the sadhanadesire to kill. It can't be said that it's through cruelty: it's through unconsciousness. </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2806/the17-march-mind1954#p1p15</ref></u></span>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">The moment we come well into these developments and their deeper spiritual meaning, the motive of the fear of God becomes otiose, superfluous and even impossible. It is of importance chiefly in the ethical field when the soul has not yet grown sufficiently to follow good for its own sake and needs an authority above it whose wrath or whose stern passionless judgment it can fear and found upon that fear its fidelity to virtue. When we grow into spirituality, this motive can no longer remain except by the lingering on of some confusion in the mind, some persistence of the old mentality. </span><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-godward-emotions#p6</ref></u>
== Types of Fear ==
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">From the ordinary point of view, in most cases, it is usually fear—fear, which may be mental fear, vital fear, but which is almost always physical fear, a fear in the cells—is fear which opens the door to all contagion. Mental fear—all who have a little control over themselves or any human dignity can eliminate it; vital fear is more subtle and asks for a greater control; as for physical fear, a veritable yoga is necessary to overcome it, for the cells of the body are afraid of everything that is unpleasant, painful, and as soon as there is any unease, even if it is insignificant, the cells of the body become anxious, they don't like to be uncomfortable. And then, to overcome that, the control of a conscious will is necessary. It is usually this kind of fear that opens the door to illnesses. And I am not speaking of the first two types of fear which, as I said, any human being who wants to be human in the noblest sense of the word, must overcome, for that is cowardice. But physical fear is more difficult to overcome; without it even the most violent attacks could be repelled. If one has a minimum of control over the body, one can lessen its effects, but that is not immunity. It is this kind of trembling of material, physical fear in the cells of the body which aggravates all illnesses. </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/19-june-1957#p6</ref></u></span>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">The vital has to be carefully distinguished from mind, even though it has a mind element transfused into it; the vital is the Life nature made up of desires, sensations, feelings, passions, energies of action, will of desire, reactions of the desire soul in man and of all that play of possessive and other related instincts, anger, fear, greed, lust etc. that belong to this field of the nature. Mind and vital are mixed up on the surface of the consciousness, but they are quite separate forces in themselves and as soon as one gets behind the ordinary surface consciousness one sees them as separate, discovers their distinct action and can with the aid of this knowledge analyse their surface mixtures. It is quite possible and even usual during a time shorter or longer, sometimes very long, for the mind to accept the Divine or the Yogic ideal while the vital is unconvinced and unsurrendered and goes obstinately on its way of desire, passion and attraction to the ordinary life. Their division or their conflict is the cause of most of the more acute difficulties of the sadhana. </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-mind#p1</ref></u></span>
===Mental Fear===